Recently, gaming has become a popular form of adult entertainment. One form of gaming is the various state-sponsored lotteries. Furthermore, casinos have appeared throughout the country, and are popular gathering places for entertainment. Gaming has also become prevalent on the Internet, with many Internet servers providing virtual casino table games as well as other forms of gaming such as lotteries to on-line participants. Internet gaming in particular is expected to accelerate as Internet usage becomes more prevalent.
One of the most popular forms of gaming is known as "bingo". In the game of "bingo", each player receives a "bingo card", which in a traditional form of bingo, is a pre-printed card. The card contains a matrix of locations or "spaces", each space being associated with a "bingo number", typically printed in the associated space on the bingo card. As one example, a typical bingo card has a matrix of five rows and five columns of spaces, each space having a bingo number printed therein As the bingo game is played, bingo numbers are drawn at random and "called", i.e., delivered to all of the players. If a called number matches any of the numbers on a player's card, i.e., is a "hit", the player marks the space with that number. In order to win a bingo game, a player must achieve a predetermined winning pattern of hits (i.e., marked spaces) on his/her bingo card. (In many versions of bingo, the bingo cards have one or more "free" spaces, which are pre-marked and do not have a number. A free space can form part of a wining pattern without being hit by any of the called bingo numbers.)
Each game of bingo can have one or more winning patterns, as determined by the game's administrator (i.e., master of ceremonies or MC). The MC typically announces the winning pattern prior to commencement of the game. For example, in a typical game utilizing five-by-five bingo cards, the MC might announce that the winning pattern consists of hits in all five spaces in one row or column of the bingo card, or all five spaces in one of the two main diagonals of a bingo card. In another game, the MC might announce that the winning pattern consists of hits in all four corner spaces of a bingo card. It is also known to adopt progressive winning patterns for a bingo game. For example, once a player achieves hits all four comer spaces of a bingo card and collects a prize for that pattern, the game may continue until a player achieves hits the entire outside border of a bingo card, at which time a second prize will be awarded. Progressive winning patterns of this kind are typically announced in advance, but in some cases are announced by the MC as a game progresses, as appears appropriate to maintain interest of the players in the game.
A traditional bingo game is typically played in a single location (a "bingo hall") without use of communications devices. In this traditional arrangement, players enter the game by selecting a favored bingo card from an available group, and deliver payment for the game, and take a seat in the hall. Thereafter, the player monitors called numbers and marks his/her card(s). It is a typical rule that as soon as a player achieves a winning pattern of hits, the player must call out "bingo"; a player only capitalizes on his/her winning pattern by recognizing the pattern and calling "bingo". This rule encourages active attention to the game by the players in the hall. When the player announces "bingo", the player's card is compared to the called numbers to confirm that the player has won
A disadvantage of the traditional bingo game, is that participants can find it draining to concentrate on the game with the intensity and for the period of time needed to ensure that bingo numbers are not missed and winning patterns are recognized. To alleviate this problem, several patents have proposed the use of portable computing devices for aiding in bingo play, such as the devices shown by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,007,649 and 5,043,887 of Richardson and U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,151 of Birenbaum. These portable devices incorporate computing circuitry for matching drawn bingo numbers to bingo cards entered into the device, and issue alarms when a winning pattern of hits has been achieved.
It has also been proposed that bingo can be played over a wide area, by players potentially remote from the location at which the bingo numbers are being drawn and announced. Remote players would then use communications devices of one form or another to follow and participate in the game.
One difficulty that arises in administration of a wide-area bingo game, is the need to distribute bingo cards to the widely dispersed potential players. There are two approaches that have been proposed, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,909,516 and 5,297,802 propose similar schemes in which bingo cards are printed at a central location and distributed manually to potential retail locations. Customers travel to these retail locations, select a bingo card, and then dial into the central location to enroll in an upcoming game. An identifier on the card is used to log the numbers on the card into the central system. An advantage of this approach is that the player's experience with the game is similar to a bingo hall; the player has a selection of cards to choose from, and may select a card with numbers that seem "lucky" or relevant to the particular person. A disadvantage, however, is that the retail locations may run out of cards, and must be persuaded to inventory cards in anticipation of forthcoming purchases. Furthermore, the expense of specially pre-printing and distributing a large number of cards can be prohibitive.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,970 describes an alternate approach. In the system described by that patent, customers travel to retail locations having state lottery machines. The customer delivers payment for a bingo card, and in response, the retailer uploads a bingo card request to the central lottery server. In reply, a bingo card is delivered to the lottery machine and printed for the customer. An advantage of this approach is that there is no need to pre-print cards or distribute them, or to convince retailers to stockpile the cards. A disadvantage, however, is that players have no opportunity to choose from among a number of bingo cards, or select a card with numbers that seem "lucky" or relevant to the particular person. Furthermore, there is no opportunity to re-use a bingo card if the player perceives it to be "lucky".
Another difficulty that arises in wide-area bingo games, is the need to determine when a player has won the game. In some of the proposed wide-area systems, players use interactive communications devices, which are configured to convey a "bingo" announcement from the remote player to the location in which the game is being played, so that the players are enabled to announce a wining status of their card, and can be required to do so to capitalize on the winning status of a card. In other proposals, a computer at the central location tracks the status of all bingo cards in play, and determines unilaterally when a player's card has achieved a winning pattern of hits, without involvement by the player. In a third approach, client computers at the location of each player, match called bingo numbers generated by the a server computer, to each of the player's bingo cards.
Automatic tracking of the status of all bingo cards in play has inherent advantages. In particular, when bingo card status is automatically tracked, it is not necessary for players to give active attention to the called bingo numbers, in order to win the game. This makes the bingo game similar to the popular state lotteries, which are popular in part because players do not need to watch or react to the real-time drawing of winning numbers to participate in and win the game, and because players do not need to coordinate their schedules with the schedule of the number drawing. Furthermore, when bingo card status is automatically tracked, players are not required to communicate anything to capitalize on a winning bingo card; thus, players do not need to use wide-area communications links to capitalize on a winning card, and need not rely on the speed and availability of a communication link in order to be ensured of winning the game. Finally, centralized tracking reduces the potential for fraud, as compared to systems in which client computers under the players' control match numbers to cards.
Various processes for centralized tracking and matching of bingo numbers to bingo cards are known in the art. Examples of known processes can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,297,802, 4,909,516, 4,661,906 and 4,651,995. Unfortunately, these known processes have a number of difficulties. Specifically, the task of centralized tracking is computationally intensive, and as a result all known processes have a practical limit on the number of players that can participate in the game. For the purpose of public interest and confidence in the game, it is desirable that the bingo numbers be announced in real time as they are selected (rather than being pre-selected in advance), and that there be no substantial delay between numbers. This means that the process for tracking and matching of bingo cards must operate in real time. However, to properly track and match bingo cards in real time, the computing system must identify, in real time, after each bingo number is called and before the next number is called, any card that achieves a winning pattern as a result of the last called bingo number. This criterion must be met to ensure that the game is appropriately stopped when a card reaches a winning pattern of hits. If, when the wining player achieves the winning pattern as a result of a bingo number being called, the fact of the winning pattern is not recognized until after one or more further bingo numbers are called, those further bingo numbers may lead one or more additional players to believe they have won the game. In this situation, the game administrator must select one of two undesirable approaches: refuse to pay out the prize to the additional players (which would likely generate ill will toward the administrator), or pay out prizes to the additional players even though those players did not actually win the game (in which case the total pay out may render the game unprofitable). To avoid such undesirable choices, the computer performing the bingo card matching process must be able to match bingo cards in real-time, and to complete the matching of a called number to all bingo cards, within the brief space of time between bingo numbers being called. Unfortunately, the computational complexity of the matching task increases with the number of bingo cards in the game; this means that known bingo card matching processes such as those described in the above-referenced patents have a practical limit on the number of bingo cards that can be played in a particular game.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to overcome the above difficulties experienced in the prior art, by providing a computer system for administrating a wide-area bingo game, which provides features for enhancing the reliability and excitement of the game, while ensuring that the bingo game is entirely fair. The result is a game of pure chance rather than skill (thus, identical in this respect to conventional lotteries) but which uses a more entertaining and exciting methodology for determining winners than current state-sponsored number-draw lotteries.